Rumours Of War h-6

by Allan Mallinson

  ‘The Spaniards would not think it their business to test the garrison?’

  ‘They have too much to lose, I think. If the expedition had been a success, then it would probably have been the signal for them to march.’

  ‘But the affair in the plaza was a poor show. What have they learned?’

  Dom Mateo inclined his head, as if to challenge the assertion. ‘It may have been more clever than you imagine, Major Hervey. Suppose that no one had come to challenge them? It was but chance that you were there, and I arrived with my troop.’

  ‘They would still have to reduce the citadel even if they gained the walls. A fearsome undertaking, I’d wager.’

  Dom Mateo smiled. ‘I was but a youth when last it was done. It was, as you say, a fearsome undertaking.’

  Hervey’s Lusitano began jogging again. He sat deep, his legs applied, to drive the mare onto the bit, for she did not respect a looser rein as did Gilbert. ‘You imagined yourself quite secure within the walls?’

  Dom Mateo raised a hand, palm upward. ‘We were on the outside, Major Hervey. It was the French who had possession! It was you British who came to their rescue!’

  Hervey frowned. ‘After Cintra?’

  Dom Mateo frowned too. ‘Yes, Cintra.’

  Cintra – as infamous a business as ever there was. It cast a long shadow still. But even at the time, Hervey, mint-new cornet that he had been, comprehended the shame. The Duke of Wellington had beaten the French at Vimeiro (or Vimiera, as the Horse Guards had it) soon after his first-footing, and with great economy, yet the arrival of – by common consent – two old fools, Hew Dalrymple and Harry Burrard, Wellington’s seniors in the gradation list, had deprived him of command. What was worse, when the French sought terms it was Dalrymple and Burrard who treated with them. And what had those two old fools agreed? To allow the French, under arms and with all their loot, safe passage back to France! And in ships of the Royal Navy! Hervey could see it now, the redcoats having to escort Junot’s men to the Tagus to protect them from the anger of the good citizens of Lisbon. But he did not know that redcoats had had to rescue the French from Elvas!

  ‘And Almeida too,’ added Dom Mateo, shaking his head.

  ‘Well, we have redeemed ourselves since,’ said Hervey assuredly, still trying to collect his mare. ‘And paid the price.’

  ‘Senhor, there is no country so grateful as mine.’

  Hervey’s little Lusitano was beginning to stamp, to piaffe almost.

  Dom Mateo glanced at him and smiled once more at his efforts to master her. ‘Portuguese ladies can be very wilful, you know, senhor. Why not allow the mare her desire? She will serve you just as well, and the discomfort is very little!’

  Portuguese ladies – the Sixth had delighted in their company for two winters and more in the Peninsula. As often as not they would speak only from behind the grille, the bars that made many a door and window look as if they belonged to a jail rather than a nunnery or palácio. And even out in society they often as not spoke as if the grille were there. But beneath lay a passion as strong as any of the Spanish girls the regiment had come to know later. Hervey had read Byron on the passage out. Kat had pressed Childe Harold on him, though she confessed she had not read much of it herself. But he did not recognize the country in it, or the people, save perhaps at Cintra, which even the poet in his curious black bile could not but write well of. He recollected well enough ‘the Spanish hind’ of which Byron waxed, but not his ‘Lusian slave’. There was nothing slave-like, in Hervey’s reckoning, about the Portuguese, hinds or harts. Isabella Delgado’s eyes had first seized him from behind the grille, but they had soon been free; and she was now half English, doubly forthright and resolute therefore. In his mind’s eye he began comparing her with Henrietta. In so many ways they were the same people.

  Yes, Dom Mateo spoke much sense. Indeed, Hervey counted him a most sensible, as well as most agreeable, companion. Dom Mateo knew his own mind, too, and that mind was capable of its own thoughts. Hervey, at last managing to collect his mare, would now share with him his own.

  ‘You know, Dom Mateo, what it is the Duke of Wellington says the art of war boils down to?’

  ‘Douro? You mean the business of seeing the other side of the hill?’

  Hervey nodded. The duke’s opinions were satisfyingly well travelled.

  ‘It is so. It must be the first object of every commander.’

  Hervey, at last relieved to be in a level walk and able to loosen the reins a little, warmed further to his subject. ‘The trouble is, in the case of any British expedition, as presently conceived, it will not be so much seeing on the enemy’s side of the hill but the hills all the way from Lisbon to the frontier.’

  Dom Mateo seized the point at once. ‘The force would remain in Lisbon?’

  ‘At Torres Vedras.’

  Dom Mateo looked puzzled. ‘I might see the wisdom of holding troops in Lisbon, but not at Torres Vedras.’

  ‘Indeed. I have argued for a forward strategy, but to no avail. There is perhaps a chance that the force might include cavalry and light troops, who might then make a dash for the frontier in the event of an incursion. Yet days – weeks, even – might pass before word could be got to them.’

  Dom Mateo shook his head. ‘Without question more troops are needed along the frontier, otherwise even if a force were got up quickly from Lisbon, the rebels could rally support. And if Spanish regulars march against us then sheer numbers would decide it quickly.’

  Hervey nodded, pleased to find a supporting view. ‘I learned in Lisbon there are not the troops to garrison the frontier; not if the lines of Torres Vedras are garrisoned first. We – the British, I mean – should have to send three divisions, which I believe is quite beyond the nation’s capability. Colonel Norris has all this, and is yet of a conventional mind. “When there is an insufficiency of troops to defend a line, the line must by some means be shortened” is what he said to me by return. He knows his regulations well enough. And there’s no denying that the line he has in mind is short and admirably defensible.’

  Dom Mateo raised an eyebrow quizzically. ‘But in the wrong place.’

  ‘To Colonel Norris, a fine work of fortification in the wrong place is better than a poorer one perfectly situated.’

  ‘Colonel Norris is um burro!’

  ‘Colonel Norris is a bombardier!’

  They were both able to smile.

  ‘And so what does the major of cavalry plan now?’ asked Dom Mateo.

  Hervey did not hesitate. ‘I have written to the Horse Guards – to the commander-in-chief’s headquarters, I mean – and laid out my contrary views.’

  ‘That was brave, senhor.’

  Hervey smiled again. ‘Was it? Perhaps so, but I have a friend at court, so to speak. I trust to his discretion. But I think the best course would be to persuade our envoy in Lisbon. His sympathy, I believe, is indeed for a forward strategy. But if Lord Beresford comes, I must trust that he at least will see the merit in the design.’

  Dom Mateo looked surprised. ‘You did not say Beresford was to come, senhor.’

  Hervey was embarrassed. ‘I beg your pardon, Dom Mateo. I had not thought . . . It is but rumour still.’

  Dom Mateo nodded slowly. ‘You know, Major Hervey, there has long been a saying in my country about Marshal Beresford: “os ingleses vindicarem dos Francéses o trono de Beresford primo, occupado pelo usurpador Junot primo”. So you see, my friend, there would be no rejoicing if the English placed Beresford the second on the throne instead of the usurper Miguel!’

  Hervey looked disappointed.

  Dom Mateo narrowed his eyes, nodding slowly again. ‘Well, my friend, whether Beresford comes or not, I do believe that a forward strategy might yet work indeed, even if the major part of the troops were held back at Torres Vedras. The issue turns on the speed with which we can alert them to our need here, does it not? Did you ever hear of General Folque?’

  Hervey’s brow furrowed; it had be
en a long time. He could remember a Colonel Folque at Mayorga; who could not? Might he be the same? ‘An engineer officer?’

  ‘Yes, Hervey, indeed! The engineer officer!’

  Hervey shivered as he recalled their cold coming at Mayorga all those years ago, the snow driving so hard they could see nothing beyond the half-dozen men in front of them. And Major-General Slade, the brigadier, wearing two cloaks, berating them for their tardiness and appearance.

  ‘You come to join the hussar brigade, and you come like so many carters’ men. I tell you, gentlemen, I will have no slopping in my brigade!’

  On and on he had ranted as the Sixth plodded past. And every man had been bewildered, for the regiment had always taken a proper pride in its appearance. They had perhaps been huddled overmuch in their cloaks and oilskins as they came into the town, but was it not only wise in weather like that? They had been bent in the saddle, against the wind, but they had braced up properly as they rode past the brigadier. So what ailed him?

  ‘I fancy we’re for a fair few turn-ups, Hervey,’ said Cornet Laming, unhappily.

  ‘Oh, I expect we’ll manage,’ replied Hervey, though by no means certain of his prediction; after all, Slade’s reputation stood in universal disregard.

  The squadron billet had been a part-ruined friary. There were men on the roof fastening down what looked like sail cloth to keep out the weather, and as Hervey began to dismount, one of them lost his footing, slid down the snowy pantiles and fell to the ground. Dragoons rushed to where he lay half buried in a drift. Hervey ran too, certain his back must be broken at least.

  But the man was laughing. They helped him to his feet. He was still laughing.

  ‘My ’at, gentlemen, if you please!’

  The accent was heavy. One of the King’s Germans, thought Hervey, and an officer, for all his curious occupation. ‘Are you quite well, sir?’ he asked.

  The man, twice Hervey’s age, and as bald as a coot, was vigorously brushing the snow from his head. ‘A roof is no place for me!’

  Hervey was nonplussed. ‘I imagine not, sir. Can I be of assistance?’

  ‘You can ’elp me find my ’at!’

  But one of the dragoons had it already, a bicorn without a plume.

  ‘Obrigado, senhor,’ said the man, bowing to the dragoon as he took it. ‘Do not concern for the feather. It is safe in my baggage!’

  It was bitter cold and the snow fell thick, yet here was an officer thoughtful of his plume. Hervey smiled. ‘Sir, you are Portuguese?’

  The man bowed again. ‘Colonel Pedro Folque, Real Corpo de Engenheiros, at your service.’

  Hervey was taken aback. ‘Colonel, I am Cornet Hervey of His Majesty’s Sixth Light Dragoons, at your service.’

  ‘I am ’appy to meet you, Cornet ’Ervey. But as you see, it is I who am truly at your service. My men make a roof for your ’eads – see?’

  ‘I am sure we are very grateful, Colonel. But—’

  ‘Ah, you wonder why a colonel of engineers is on the roof of a stable? Because if there is nothing for ’im to do at the general’s ’eadquarters then it is better that ’e uses ’is ’ands where there is.’

  Sir Edward Lankester came striding, his cheeks pinched with cold, relieving his cornet of the duty of conversation.

  Hervey took his leave of both for his duties as officer of the day, wondering just what chance he might have of lying under the colonel’s improvised roof that night.

  He soon learned that his chances were next to nothing.

  ‘A Troop’s to furnish a general’s escort within the hour,’ growled the adjutant from his new orderly room, in a chapel of rest just outside the friary walls.

  ‘For which general?’

  ‘Lord Paget.’

  Hervey would have given up a week of sleep under Colonel Folque’s roof for such a commission. Not only was the general not Slade, there had been no end of talk about Paget these past weeks, and all of it in the most laudatory terms. Lord Paget was, in the eyes of the Sixth, the apotheosis of cavalry.

  Hervey set off to inform his troop-leader, finding him with the quartermaster at what was evidently to pass as evening stables. Lankester had set himself to look at every foot, for he was convinced that the troop – the whole army, indeed – would have no respite in the days ahead. Sir Edward Lankester had friends in Sir John Moore’s headquarters, and he learned things.

  ‘To move where?’ Lankester asked, pulling off a loose shoe and handing it to the mare’s dragoon.

  ‘Sahagun, eight leagues to the north-east.’ Lankester stood up. ‘Is Debelle there? Is that the reason?’ ‘The adjutant did not say, Sir Edward. Only that Captain Edmonds’s troop is gone there already, and General Slade with the Tenth and the Fifteenth.’

  Lankester narrowed his eyes. ‘Debelle; it must be. If Soult is where Moore believes him to be, at Saldana and Carrion, then he’ll have Debelle’s cavalry covering him at Sahagun.’ A smile creased his face just perceptibly. ‘So Paget is going to bustle him out of the place! I’d have wished it my troop with him rather than Edmonds’s. You had better ask Mr Martyn to come here.’

  A general’s escort of thirty cavalry was a lieutenant’s command, plus a cornet and two serjeants. Hervey cursed that he was officer of the day, for Laming would have the sport instead. He went to find them both.

  Laming was not in the horse lines, however. He was with the surgeon by a pile of blazing wood in the ambulatory, and his face told of some pain. ‘She shied, just as I was stepping down. I think my wrist is broke.’

  ‘I fear it is,’ said the surgeon. ‘But not so bad as may have been.’

  ‘Martyn is to take an escort for Lord Paget,’ said Hervey. ‘Sir Edward asks for you too.’

  ‘Ten minutes more, Hervey, as you see, and then I’ll come.’

  In ten more minutes Lankester had inspected another dozen horses. And it was as well that he did so, he reckoned, for so far he had found need of the farrier in half the troop. It was the quartermaster’s responsibility to instruct the farrier which horses were to be shod, the invariable routine in barracks. In the field, however, both the captain and the quartermaster attended stables after a march. That, at least, was the rule in the Sixth. Not that Troop Quartermaster Banks was anything other than diligent, but an officer who did not hold the health of his horses’ feet to be his personal responsibility was unwary in the extreme.

  ‘What in heaven’s name have you there?’ said Lankester, seeing Cornet Laming at last.

  ‘It is but a splint, Sir Edward.’

  ‘I can see that. But what does it serve? And why?’

  ‘My wrist is broke – just a little. I fell with it under me. The surgeon says the splint will see things to right in a few days.’

  ‘A few days? I’ve never known anything mend in under a month, not properly. You’d better take Hervey’s place as officer of the day, and he yours with the escort.’

  Laming’s jaw dropped. ‘But Sir Edward, Hervey here has seen action already. This splint is nothing. I can ride perfectly well.’

  ‘That is as may be,’ replied Lankester, frowning. ‘But you will need both hands, I do assure you, if you face the French.’

  The dragoons of Number One Division, First Squadron (A Troop), did not immediately share Hervey’s enthusiasm for the escort. They wanted to be at the French, and no mistake, but a bellyful of beef first would not have gone ill with them. Lankester thought so too, and rode to Lord Paget’s quarters to beg a stay of an hour. He told no one what he was about, partly because it was not his way, and partly so as to give no offence to the lieutenant-colonel, whose adjutant ought in truth to have thought of it for himself.

  ‘Sir Edward! It is good to see you,’ declared Lord Paget cheerily as A Troop’s captain presented himself.

  Lankester saluted and took off his Tarleton.

  The two men could have been peas from the same pod, save that Lankester looked even sparer now from the month’s hard march. There were ten years between them, bu
t as gentlemen little at all.

  ‘What a time you must have had of things. But at least you’ve not had that arse Slade with you. I swear he’ll do the business to a good many before the year is out. Will you take a mess of tea with me?’

  Lord Paget’s quarters would not have served the meanest of his father’s tenants in Staffordshire, but in this blizzard, with a roof and four walls and a pine log burning in the grate, it was as a palace.

  ‘Indeed I will, sir. And it’s a very great comfort for us to see you too. We have not had much of a go so far; the cavalry, that is. Stewart’s done splendid work, but we need to cross swords with the French instead of just stalking them. As I see it, we’re bound to turn for the sea before too long, and if we don’t fight them hard at some stage—’

  Lord Paget held up his hand. ‘I know, Sir Edward, I know. Moore has been let down by that damnable junta in Madrid, and our envoy there’s an imbecile – he writes even now urging him to march there directly, as if it were an open city. Nor will Bonaparte sit there for long. He has eighty thousand, according to our latest intelligence. Whether he’ll turn these against the Spanish and finish them off, or drive for Lisbon, or come for Moore is the question.’

  ‘But our numbers, given that we are unable to make any useful junction with the Spanish, could not stand against such an onslaught. That is the material point, is it not?’

  ‘It is. But we can bloody Soult’s imperious nose before Bonaparte and he make a junction. We can even destroy his corps, with a certain address, and that could not fail to spoil Bonaparte’s plans. It might indeed buy the Spaniards a little time, though there’s no saying they wouldn’t then waste it. It might just save Lisbon, too – at least for a month or so.’

  ‘What a distance we have come since Vimiera!’

  ‘Heavy irony, Sir Edward – very. Cintra has done for Wellesley, I feel sure. The newspapers are very clamorous. Did you ever see the Political Register’s pieces?’